If you are late to this, you have seven episodes to catch up on first. Hurry back…
I welcome my brand-new assistant manager Roar Hanset, signed almost entirely for his name, onto our hard-working team bus for the trip up to Mansfield. Things are going well at Field Mill. The team are third in the league and boast the division’s joint-top goalscorer, Chris Greenacre. I’m delighted to report that he is injured, so we won’t have to worry about him. However, their AMC Craig Disley is the second-best player in the league by Average Rating, just behind Sir Les. They are no slouches, and we’ll need to be well up for this.
I decide to make a few changes. Chris Plummer makes his debut, and Pa Modou Kah drops to the bench. Billy McKinlay stays at DMC but after getting booked in almost every game so far, he’s only one yellow short of a suspension. Hopefully he’ll get it here so he can rest for the next game against mid-table Exeter.
I leave Gary Mills in the team following his superb form and bench Byron Bubb. Pflipsen doesn’t make the bench, but he’s only just back from injury. He can have a run next time assuming all goes well here.
The first half is tense and even, though we do have the better of it. Former Man Utd legend Kevin Pilkington is equal to everything we throw at him for the first 20 minutes, before Chris Brandon finds Farnerud in the box and our 17-year-old Swede hits a first-time shot to make it 1-0 at half time.
I note that Gary Mills is stuck on a 6, and Karlheinz Pflipsen seems to be fiddling with what looks like a voodoo doll on the bench. Troubled but unperturbed, I make no changes and start the second half.
Immediately, Mansfield catch us out and equalise through the delicious Danny Bacon. It’s 1-1, but we aren’t playing badly and I don’t feel like we should be drawing here. However, we’re huffing and puffing and not really doing anything to change matters, so I do something: Mills has let me down and is replaced by Bubb. Mustafa is having an uncharacteristic shocker and is dragged off to be replaced by Kah. I shout something about giving 110%, but it’s all too late. Mansfield have done a job on us here. The game finishes 1-1, and this is why we need to be better defensively – our forwards aren’t always going to be around to bail us out. We haven’t played badly, so I’m not too downbeat. This just feels like a defeat. Fortunately, Swansea slip up at Rochdale, and other results mean we stay top of the pile.
We return home to better news. I’ve won Manager of the Month again, which I graciously accept and put next to the Ikea trophy cabinet flat-pack we ordered but nobody has put together yet.
This month, though, I’m not the only award winner. Les Ferdinand picks up Player of the Month, and Gary Mills is Young Player of the Month. Both are richly deserved, and Mills even takes the time to thank me for my faith in him. You’re welcome, Gary. You’re also dropped.
Elsewhere, there is huge news from Goodison Park. Everton’s perilous financial situation is resolved by October. Off in the distance, I hear the sound of teeth grinding. I think it’s coming from London.
Hartlepool come in with a derisory £130k offer for Greg Lincoln. I want rid of him, but that’s absurd. Stockport were prepared to pay £600k, though admittedly they didn’t actually have that much money on them when they arrived, but still – I can do better. I tell them I’ll take £500k and re-list him. Cardiff sniff around. I waft him in their general direction.
Immediately before our game against Exeter, the gods convene to slap me right across the mouth. First, Tarkan Mustafa picks up a knock in training that will keep him out for a week. Okay. Then Delroy Gordon, my promising youth RB, is injured in a reserve game and is out for a month. Alrighty then. I turn to Pah Modou Kah, who can also play right back, but he’s buggered off on international duty with Norway U21s. I have lost three right backs in one afternoon and I have literally no-one else who can play there.
I have a dilemma. I don’t want to change formation, so I rule that out. Mustafa is only orange injured, so could play. I don’t really want to risk him. I consider playing Brandon or Bubb out there; neither can tackle to save their lives. I briefly consider playing Bernard Lama outfield but decide he will probably end up committing some sort of crime. Then, I look again to my reserves. You know how on the old CM games you get some greyed-out, spectral reserves to fill the positions you don’t have real players for, and you can pick them when you don’t have anyone else? Well, I spot this kid haunting the training cones, and am captivated by the positions he apparently plays.
He’s brave. He’s aggressive. He’s got a 24-inch vertical leap. He plays right0back and up front, like we all did when we were 16. He’s a better tackler than Bubb and Brandon combined. I am slightly concerned about Decisions 1 and Passing 2, but what the hell. I like the cut of Matthew Adams’s jib. Let’s see if we’ve got a shirt small enough to fit him.
Luckily, Exeter are rubbish and we have the run of the first half. Arjan van Heusden is having a nightmare in goal for the away side and Peter Møller (2) and Les Ferdinand put us 3-0 up at the break. Young Adams even manages to ghost forward and get a header on target, which makes sense when you consider he has 2 for Positioning and probably doesn’t really know where he’s meant to be playing.
We picked up a few bookings in the first half which doesn’t bother me until the 56th minute, when Gentle Les is sent off for almost killing Jamie Campbell. Forced to change, I go with just one up front and swap Risp, who’s also on a yellow, for Peters just to make sure he doesn’t also have to get the loofah out early. I click Restart, and immediately Pflipsen goes down injured. No wonder he was on a free. Bubb comes into the centre for the last half an hour, and Exeter – now a man up – start to put pressure on us. Again, though, Pinheiro is there to deflect everything they put on target, and then in the 81st minute, Paul Underwood lines up a free kick on the edge of the box and rattles it in off the bar. The game finishes 4-0, and we have come through a damaging encounter to win convincingly in the end.
Sir Les is banned for one match and I decide not to appeal and risk having it extended. Pflipsen is out for another two weeks, which is annoying but not a huge problem, and young Matthew Adams didn’t have a total disaster on his first, and probably only, game for the mighty Diamonds. It’s something he’ll be able to boast about to his little phantom friends forever. Meanwhile, I throw another bid at Cheltenham for right-back Mike Duff in the hope that he finally realises where his future lies. He instantly rejects me yet again, because he won’t leave the Robins for a rival club. Loyalty won’t get you anywhere, Mike.
There is suddenly a huge, exciting flurry of transfer activity. First, Scunthorpe make a £100k bid for the legendary Billy Turley. It’s a wrench to accept it, but Pinheiro is clearly our number one, and Lama is a fun party clown to have in reserve. I’d rather Billy got some games than sat in the slums, so we say goodbye with a large bunch of lilies and a card signed by everyone except Greg Lincoln who’s still sulking about my attempts to re-train him so he can actually play in the team. Take him with you, Billy.
Then, mega news. Hammarby are relegated from the Swedish Premier Division. Okay, not mega news in itself, but the astute among you will see where this is going. It has triggered the release clause of one Kennedy Bakircioglu, who can now be poached for just £220k. I am already on a plane to wherever Hammarby is with a sack full of money and my favourite contract-signing pen. Then, I see Sogndal are relegated from the Norwegian Premier Division and Christian Kalvenes has a £160k release clause triggered. We send a bid over. Two potential Nordic legends in a single afternoon. Hold on to your pants.
Gateshead, who aren’t even in a division on CM01/02, make a £60,000 offer for Greg Lincoln. As this saga is now becoming a farce, and I’d love to see him disappear off the face of the earth for his constant moaning, I accept it. I re-re-re-list him for £250k, Cambridge Utd and bizarrely Ajax Cape Town both look interested. I just want him to go away.
As I await news on that, Steve Bruce knocks on my door, sits down, and opens a briefcase containing £500,000, which he would like to exchange for Stuart Gray. Completely unable to comprehend this news, and with my head spinning from the transfer cyclone, I accept. Ayr Utd make a £100k bid for Greg Lincoln. I really, really should have sold him to Hull for £500k a few months ago.
I glance longingly at my vermouth collection as I close my inbox and prepare for our trip to Shrewsbury. They are another mid-table team, and while striker Chris Freestone (8 goals in 10 games) is obviously a danger, I’m not too concerned. I note that their defenders are quite slow, so I chuck young Ronnie in to see if he can light them up a bit. He’s only slightly quicker than the Shrews CBs, but his Balance (15) means he’s quite a good dribbler despite actually having 3 for Dribbling. Let’s go.
Gay Meadow is not a happy place for us in the first half. The Shrews scamper all over us and Freestone does what he does best, putting them 1-0 up after 20 minutes. Paul Underwood, my only proper left-back, is having a shocker, but luckily for him, Peter Møller isn’t interested in letting this game slip away. He channels a battering ram to equalise against the run of play in the 28th minute, and we manage to get through to half time level at 1-1. I don’t even let Underwood (5) into the changing room and replace him with Mustafa, who’s out of position, but can’t possibly be worse than that. Right?
Young Ronaldo has been marked out of the game, so I also replace him with Sir Les, and the second half starts well. Møller goes on a solo run and finishes to make it 2-1, and my two subs have helped us establish a foothold in the game. Pinheiro keeps us ahead by twice denying Freestone, and then Ferdinand’s mountainous hold-up play allows Mills to sneak into the box and hammer home our third. We see the game out and win 3-1, but that first half was truly dreadful. I haven’t lost faith in Underwood after one bad game, but I’m acutely aware of how much we rely on him. I still need a good sub left-back, especially since it looks like Gray is off to Selhurst Park.
Stuart Gray has indeed gone to Palace, and good luck to him. I barely even recognise his face. Christian Kalvenes agrees to speak to me, but he wants £8,000 per week. He’s happy with rotation, which is great, but that’s a lot of dough. I try to negotiate him down, very aware that he can play left-back and it might be best to just give him what he wants.
Then, the next morning, the clouds part. We have entered a brave, bold new era. An era of happiness, laughter, back-slapping, massages and daisy chains. The fog over Nene Park has been lifted at last. Thank god. Let’s see if he can pass his way out of this one.
Mike Paul – you can employ him as a voice actor and football commentator here